India has never coveted any territory: PM Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: Against the backdrop of cross-LoC surgical strikes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday sent across a message that India isn’t an aggressor nation. Refraining from any chest-thumping on Army’s success, he stressed that India “has never coveted any territory or attacked another country”.

“India has never coveted any territory, never attacked another country. Yet thousands of Indians gave their lives in the World War I & II,” Modi said after inaugurating the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra, a state-of-the-art complex dedicated to overseas Indians.

The prime minister’s remarks came a day after defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s statement that “Pakistan’s condition after the surgical strikes is like that of an anaesthetised patient after a surgery who doesn’t know that the surgery has already been performed on him.”

“Even two days after the surgical strikes, Pakistan has no idea what has happened…that the strikes were also meant to give a message to Pakistan that Indian troops knew how to retaliate,” Parrikar said in Dehradun on Saturday.

Senior officials told ET that the remarks by Parrikar came under scrutiny from the highest levels of the government.

ET has reliably learnt that senior levels of the government had taken a call that India should not appear escalating the situation through highvoltage provocative statements. It is for this reason that the PM consciously decided against making even slightest reference to cross-LoC action in his maiden public speech at a sanitation conference (INDOSANIndia Sanitation Conference) here just a day after the operation.

Referring to humanitarian role played by India so far in conflict situations world over, Modi recalled: “In the last two years, you have seen how the government rescued people from conflict situations, not just Indians but foreigners too.” Modi said the Indian diaspora should be looked at, not just in terms of its numbers, but also in terms of its strength.

He pointed out that for years the term “brain drain” has been in vogue. “But if we look at the diaspora as our strength we can convert this to ‘brain gain’.” Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said the Kendra is “a memorial for those who went abroad” to earn a living for themselves.